Why Next-level Decision-making Needs the Right Data and Automation Tools
Decision intelligence connects traditional decision-making techniques, data and advanced technology to help organizations improve business results.
Organizations collect massive amounts of data daily but fail to use it effectively to guide decision-making. Sam Babic, CTO, Hyland, discusses the need for decision intelligence and data and automation tools to improve business decision-making and shares six steps to apply decision intelligence.
A Gartner survey found that 61 percent of respondents believe their businesses cherry-pick data points to prompt desired outcomes. When organizations rely on incomplete data in this way, they can miss out on important insights and make decisions that throw their business off course.
An emerging discipline called decision intelligence can help organizations improve their decision-making processes. Decision intelligence connects traditional decision-making techniques, data and advanced technology to help organizations improve business results. Rather than replacing humans in decision-making, it empowers leaders to make decisions quickly based on optimized data.
Complex Systems Make Data-driven Decision-making a Challenge
Decision intelligence is a continuous process of data collection, analysis and implementation. It is accelerated by hyperautomation — the use of advanced technologies like AI, machine learning and robotic process automation (RPA) to streamline as many processes as possible across the organization. Hyperautomation connects technology “islands” to create end-to-end workflows and eliminate repetitive responsibilities like data entry or cleaning.
Leaders in industries with many moving parts benefit the most from decision intelligence. Supply chains are a perfect example. Modern supply chains intertwine countless partnerships frequently impacted by forces beyond their control, like supplier shortages, fuel prices, weather events and transportation bottlenecks. For example, everyone remembers the supply chain shortages of household products like toilet paper during the height of the pandemic.
When producers make decisions about transportation carriers, they must consider multiple factors like performance and cost. It is nearly impossible to analyze all these options efficiently. So many times, leaders rely on instinct. This often exacerbates issues like shortages.
On the other hand, when leaders automate more of their data collection and analysis processes, they can better access relevant information to understand the full scope of market conditions, then make fast, highly informed decisions based on granular data points. If this process were in place during the pandemic, organizations could have identified shortages sooner and moved quickly to find alternate routes to transport materials and goods that people needed. Hyperautomation is critical in making decision intelligence effective.
See More: Automation Is Key for Businesses; Here’s How To Implement It the Right Way
6 Steps to Help you Put Decision Intelligence into Practice
Hyperautomation and decision intelligence require a process that involves more than simply implementing a new solution; your organization must be committed before moving forward. Here is an overview of the steps you will need to take:
- Get buy-in from leadership: Get your C-suite leaders together, and make sure everyone is on the same page. If your leaders are not motivated to adopt new technologies and processes to grow your business, decision intelligence cannot work. Decision intelligence is a philosophy that starts at the top of your organization. Decision intelligence can elevate business decision-making and improve operational outcomes when your executives are aligned on goals.
- Bring your employees along for the ride: Remember to include employees in the discovery, planning and implementation stages. Your employees must understand how automation can support their work instead of hindering it. And by keeping everyone in the loop, you can facilitate more seamless implementation of hyperautomation and improve operational efficiency. You also need to offer ongoing training sessions to educate employees about the new automated tools.
- Evaluate your current networks: You cannot integrate new technologies if you do not know what you already have. That means you need to evaluate your current performance by analyzing your processes and back-of-house operations to identify gaps, inefficiencies and bottlenecks in your network. Throughout this process, highlight areas in which hyperautomation can deliver meaningful improvements.
- Identify vendors to fill automation gaps: You must identify and assess potential vendors to connect legacy systems with new applications. Be sure to evaluate vendors’ certifications, security approaches and track records to ensure they meet your business needs. Also, review whether your current tech capabilities, like your existing cloud strategy, can adapt to your vendor’s services.
- Integrate the right technologies: A data warehouse is one of the foundational systems you will need. This management system organizes massive amounts of data from multiple sources, making automated decision-making possible. Additional capabilities to target include an integration platform to streamline workflows and an AI stack to upgrade your data and analysis processes.
- Keep fine-tuning: Decision intelligence is not about setting up automations once and letting them run. It is essential to monitor performance regularly and adjust your decision models and processes based on the insights you uncover. Continuously collect and evaluate data about the automated processes to see if they improved operational efficiency and decision-making. From there, you can improve these outcomes using the data derived from the automation.
Decisions are easier to make when advanced technologies simplify the process. And with better access to granular data across your entire organization, you can make faster and more accurate decisions that enable your organization to remain agile in an unpredictable world.
How are you leveraging decision intelligence? Share with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We’d love to know!
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